Fact of the day

Information is the most powerful weapon.

Monday

Fact N°
2746

Men and women see motion and colors differently.

According to a study published in Biology of Sex Differences, men's and women's vision are slightly different -- men are better at tracking objects, while women are better at observing subtle color differences. Male participants, the study found, are not as proficient at discriminating between shades in the middle of the spectrum (greens, yellows, and blues), and might see an object as being warmer (more reddish or more orange) than a woman would. However, men excelled at noticing details that shifted rapidly and at a distance (thanks to hormone exposure in the womb, men have more neurons in the visual cortex, which is responsible for this visual processing).

Tuesday

Fact N°
2745

Vallejo-Fairfield, California is the most diverse U.S. metropolitan area.

The U.S. 2010 research project at Brown University compiled data on the state of diversity across all U.S. cities or metro areas. The most diverse metro area on the resulting list was Vallejo-Fairfield, which is 40% white, 14% black, 25% Hispanic and 15% Asian. The least diverse city on the countdown was Laredo, Texas, which is 96% Hispanic, followed by the Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna metro area, between West Virginia and Ohio, which is 96% white. Nonetheless, the project concludes that nine-tenths of all U.S. cities and towns have become more diverse since 1980.

Wednesday

Fact N°
2744

Three-fourths of women won't date an unemployed man.

It's Just Lunch, a personalized matchmaking service for professionals, surveyed users on their dating preferences and found that 75% of women are at least "unlikely" to date an unemployed man (including 33% who flatly said they would not). Only 4% of women responded that, "of course," they would. Women were partially concerned about the financial repercussions of dating someone who is unemployed, but were also concerned that their partner's lack of employment would keep them from doing things they enjoy. Conversely, 65% of men were open to dating an unemployed woman.

Thursday

Fact N°
2751

Sights and smells can subliminally influence your pain response.

Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Charlestown set out to test the idea that outside stimuli completely unrelated to treatment are able to invoke the placebo response and its counter-effect (dubbed the nocebo response). Participants were shown two different images on a computer screen, one of which was presented along with a painful heat pulse to the arm; the other image was accompanied by a much less severe heat pulse. Half of the participants then saw the same images again, but this time, both images were accompanied by an identical heat pulse. The participants nonetheless believed that the previously higher-pain image was again accompanied by a more painful pulse. The other half of the participants were presented with the same setup, but only saw the images for 12 milliseconds, far too fast to consciously parse them (for reference, a blink lasts about 300 milliseconds). These participants also rated the high-pain image as more painful. The implication, according to the study's authors, is that stimuli we're not even aware of can assist (or hamper) a patient's recovery.

Friday

Fact N°
2752

Watching reruns helps restore your willpower.

A study at the University of Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions asked participants to track their daily activities along with their television consumption and found that people are more likely to seek out TV reruns (or favorite books or movies) if they have something taxing to do later in the day. A followup experiment asked participants to engage in either a demanding task or a less-demanding one. Half of the participants were then asked to write about their favorite TV show, while the other half were given a neutral writing assignment (listing items in their rooms). Those who had dealt with a demanding task wrote more, and for longer, about their favorite TV show than those who'd had a less-demanding task, implying that reflecting on familiar content is in some way restorative.

Saturday

Fact N°
2753

Sexual arousal inhibits disgust.

According to research published in the journal PLOS ONE, sexual arousal dampens people's (or at least women's) feelings of revulsion when confronted with repulsive stimuli. Researchers separated groups of women with an average age of 23 into three groups. One group watched a "female-friendly" erotic movie, the second watched adventurous footage containing skydiving and rafting, and a third group watched nature footage. All of the women were then asked to engage in disgust-provoking tasks, like drinking out of a cup with a (plastic) bug in it. The women who had watched the erotic film were more agreeable to engaging in these tasks than either of the other groups.

Sunday

Fact N°
2754

Job satisfaction is partially genetic.

According to research from Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, some elements of job satisfaction are influenced more by your genetic predispositions than by the actual quality of your workplace. Studies of 300 pairs of twins found that genetic factors are four times as likely to influence stress levels and overall health as the environmental circumstances of a person's job. Reported levels of job stress, according to the study's author, are unreliable predictors of the objective stress level of that job; two people at the same job who report different levels of stress often just have genetically different responses to stress. The implication is that quitting a stressful job may not necessarily improve your quality of life, if the culprit is in fact your own reaction to stress, rather than the workplace itself.